Twitch banks on shareability

With its new "Clips" feature, the Amazon-owned live streamer will allow users to cut short-form clips from live broadcasts for social distribution.

Twitch, the Amazon-owned, gaming-focused live streamer, has set out to make its long-form, live-streamed content more shareable using a new “clips” feature to give its content a longer shelf-life online.

One of the biggest success factors for digital video is its shareability — how easily it can make its way around the online world through shares on social media. The shareability factor has proven to be successful for companies like Buzzfeed’s food brand Tasty and linear late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and John Oliver. Now Twitch is getting in on the action with its newest update.

The newly introduced feature, simply deemed “Clips” by Twitch, allows creators and viewers of live-streamed content to select clips from of up to 30 seconds which can then be shared in direct peer-to-peer messaging apps or on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Users can make as many clips as they like.

The feature has already begun rolling out on some of Twitch’s partnered channels (channels that are monetized through advertising). The feature will eventually become available throughout the entire site over the coming weeks, according to a company blog post, and will serve all of Twitch’s dedicated verticals including its arts vertical and its recently launched food vertical.